Chad Stewart is a Real Estate Pro with Rockford Realty Group. I personally update andmaintain my website and this blog. North Florida is a great place to live and work. I work with buyers and sellers for real estate in Lake City, FL, Columbia County, Florida & the surrounding areas. Check back frequently to this blog for Florida real estate news, Market info, technology updates more Lake City FL Real Estate info. Rockford Realty Group

Friday, February 10, 2006

Richard Barton, the creator of online travel company Expedia, is introducing a beta version of a real estate information Web site that gives consumers free home valuations and neighborhood data.The Web site, Zillow.com, uses tax records, sales histories, and prices of comparable homes in the neighborhood to calculate a home value estimate — or “Zestimate,” as it’s referred to on the site. More than 60 million homes are currently included in the Web site’s database, but that’s just the beginning, says Barton, who sold Expedia.com in 2003 after revolutionizing the travel business. "Consumers will make better decisions and become smarter," he says. "People want to be empowered with information so they can take control of what is scary and difficult and fraught with frustrations."Seattle-based Zillow doesn’t provide sales listing information on its Web site, at least for now.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Columbia County Home Sales increased from 558 in 2004 to 590 in 2005. The average price increased from $132,056 in 2004 to $163,113 in 2005. Including land, mobile homes, residential & commercial, there was $190 million in total sales in 2005, up from $122 million in 2004.